By any measure the On Nation Rally that was held in
Washington on October 2nd was a great success as far as numbers go.
Perhaps a many as 250,000 people at the low end attended this event that ran
for four hours on the same spot and area that Civil Rights champion the late
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have A Dream" speech that
galvanized the nation over 60 years ago.

But that was then and sadly the Black and Brown communities,
the poor, disenfranchised and angry of today do not have a King to lead them.
And so the One Nation Rally was long very long on rhetoric, big on noise,
lots of noise and short, very short, on substance. For me, the very character and national importance of this
rally had, ultimately, to be determined by the demands that it was prepared to
make on the United States power establishment and in particular on the White
House.

Aside from noble and lofty calls to "take back America" and
tried and tired acknowledgements that "we need to bail out main street and save
the so-called middle class" there was very little that emerged from the four
hour event that would persuade or compel President Barack Obama or the US
Congress to start fulfilling their promises to all Americans. We have heard
this all before.

Of course, from the onset this rally, based on a "one
nation" concept, by its very nature was incapable of forming a common platform
given the different and opposed ideological, political and world views
expressed by the many and varied organizations that came together to make the
rally the numerical success that it undoubtedly was. So perhaps it was easier
not to narrow or change the public debate down to a specific set of issues
because of disagreements with prioritization. Thus, broad themes that all could
agree upon without becoming disagreeable was the way to go.

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The risk, and I am sure organizers were aware of this, was
that the message would become diluted and weak when spread so thin and using so
broad a set of strokes. Participating
organizations included nearly the entire spectrum of labor, social justice and
peace formations in the United States. Speaker after speaker, from youth from
Los Angeles to well-known national figures like Rev. Al Sharpton,
singer/activist Harry Belafonte and Rev. Jesse Jackson proved to be more jaded
when it came to the message of the day and their winded presentations, with
worn out cliches and all, exposed the real lack of militant, focused and
energetic Black leadership for today.

Certainly, in
evoking the memory and message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the One Nation
Rally missed the very significance of the King event that happpened more than a
half a century ago. MLK made demands of the system and held the occupant of the
White House accountable. By contrast, the One Nation Rally was an organized and
tame gathering that was more of a pep rally for the Democrats and the November
2 mid term elections. It lacked the one essential element that made MLK's March
on Washington so effective righteous objective protest. By not making
specific demands on Presient Barack Obama, the Democratic Party and the
Congress the rally amounted to a capitulation to the status quo no matter the
more than 250,000 or 450,000 t-shirt wearing, chanting, coumbiah singing, teary
eyed people who converged on Washington.

I hate to sound
so cynical but it is time that we call a spade a spade and to call out those
well-meaning friends of democracy and fairness when they fall short. This rally
was nothing more than a pep rally in support of Preisdent Obama and the
Democratic Party that accomplished little by way of "speaking truth to power."
It was a well-organized side show that demonstrated that a real movement for
economic change, social justice and fairness does not today exist in the United
States. Maybe the rally was a first step in their process.

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By not making
demands on the power status quo and especially the present occupant of the
White House in his capacity as the
leader of this nation and the so-called free world; who holds the most influentuial
and powerful position in the world and commands the strongest military force in
history the One Nation Rally helped, unconsciously, people to escape from the
real horrid conditions of their present circumstances if only for four hours
and allowed them to vent their feelings of anger at the Republican Party and
a few Democrats in Congress. It's the groupie tendency only this time from the
Democratic center-left the anti-group manifestation against the ultra-right Tea
Party Movement.

The present
condition of the American worker is dire. Unemployment, especially among Black
people, is in the double digits. More Blacks and Latinos now live in poverty than
ever before. Attacks on civil liberties, deportation of immigrants, and the
fact that the rich has gotten richer in two years under President Obama are all
undisputed facts. As is the fact that today even with the declaration that
the worst recession in over 50 years has ended - more and more working families
are losing their homes and there has been no bailout for small and mediumsized
businesses.

Therefore it is
pointless to demonstrate and rally agsinst these social and economic ills that
are affecting the vast majority of Americans not the protected, privileged
1.5% - without making concrete and substantive demands. It is not working and
middle class Americans that is benifiting from two overseas wars of aggression
that has now cost this country over two trillion dollars and counting. And President
Obama who always claims to be in the process of ending these wars continues to
escalate them - just as did George
Bush.

Me? I am tired of marching and burning out good shoe leather
in the process. In the end a bunch of people had a great outing, chanted, sung
and listened to a bevy of speakers making the same points over and over again.
The One Nation Rally was and is a great idea but it needs work. Instead of just
pushing for large turn out numbers important though that is the movement
must offer up a set of immediate demands and a long-term plan to lift all
boats. In that it failed.

MICHAEL DERK ROBERTS
Small Business Consultant, Editor, and Social Media & Communications Expert, New York
Over the past 20 years I've been a top SMALL BUSINESS CONSULTANT and POLITICAL CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST in Brooklyn, New York, running (more...)